Of Songbirds and Sleeping Pills
by Dlvvanzor
Summary: Mello isn't moving. MxM oneshot Matt POV.


**Disclaimer: I do not, yet again, own Death Note. Still don't. Never will. Don't want to, because I'd screw it up by making it all lemon and romance. There'd be no plot. I do own Rane and Igloo, though. : )**

**A/N: I don't hate nature; this is Matt. And Fluffffff! Be warned.**

Fuckin. Birds.

Birds are yet another of the many reasons I hate nature. It's like the only goal in their collective life is to wake people up at ungodly hours. I had gone to bed at four. _Four_. In the _morning_. _A.M.!_ Was it at _least _noon? Was it?! Then I didn't want to be woken up by winged rats! Let alone at _six_!

I rolled over to see if Mello was awake on the other side of our shared room (the apartment only had one), and, if he was, to spread my misery around a little. Mello was always doing it to _me_. It seemed fair. Besides, he might get so annoyed at me that he'd shoot the birds, and that would be awesome.

I blinked when I saw him. He was lying on his back. That was really unusual; he normally pretty devotedly slept on his stomach or his side. And he had gone to bed at a reasonable hour, for once, and he hated sleeping past five, even when he went to bed _really_ late, so he should definitely have been awake by now. He'd be crabby all day if he knew he lost an hour.

He's difficult, but I'm the one wanting to shoot innocent bits of nature just for the crime of existing.

I frowned and called out his name. "Mello?" Maybe he was just lying down. Was he ill? "Hey, Mels, you feeling okay?"

I hoisted myself out of my bed with a grunt and staggered over to him. I sniffed and rubbed my eyes, trying to remove the pointy eye boogers that had gathered there. "You sick? Can I get you some hot chocolate or someth- MELLO! MELLO!!!"

My eyes went huge and all my vital signs immediately quadrupled. There was a bottle of sleeping pills next to his bed on his end table. That wasn't normal, and...

Shaking, I snatched the bottle. It was completely empty. He had only bought them yesterday! I frantically read the dosage on the back. Two. Two pills. Unless those were pretty damn big pills that bottle shouldn't have been empty.

There was a number to call for accidental overdose. I memorized it immediately, putting that brain of mine to use for once and praising it for cooperating when I needed it, dropping the bottle to rip my cell phone our of my jeans pocket. There was a response after only one ring.

"Poison control." The woman was calm, but she sounded focused. Calm was good, but how could she be calm at a time like this? _Mello_ was probably dying!

"My roommate took a whole bottle of sleeping pills. I just found him," I informed her shakily. I tried to stay calm and I forced myself to speak clearly, I really did, but my best friend had just tried to kill himself _again_. The first time I had barely gotten the gun away from him in time. And _this_ time... right next to me... while I _slept_... oh _Gandalf_ if he _died_...

"What's the brand?" she asked immediately.

I told her.

She began to speak a lot more quickly. That couldn't be good. "We've traced your call. An ambulance is on its way."

"Is he gonna die?" I begged her.

She didn't respond right away. "...An ambulance will be there in just a few minutes. Just... talk to him."

I choked out a thanks and hung up.

I didn't have the energy to try to maneuver my phone back into my pocket, so I just let it fall onto the carpet. "Mello..." I couldn't think of anything else to say. My mind went blank, looking at his still face, at the slow rise and fall of his chest. Well, he was breathing. That had to be a good sign, right?

"Mello, if you die, I'll kill you," I whispered. My fingers found their way to his face and to his scar. "Mel..." He was warm, but he wasn't waking up. He was so still...

Mello was always moving. That had been a constant in my life since I met him when I was six. When he was awake, he was usually running, hitting someone, or throwing something, and always with the exquisite grace of a panther. I described my comparison to him once and he had run after me, hit me, and then thrown something at me- effectively allowing me to experience all forms of his constant movement- before deciding that he _liked_ being associated with a panther, ceasing to kick me, helping me up, and promptly going out to buy a ton of black clothing.

Even when he was asleep, he was always twitching, always tossing and turning, always having nightmares. He never called them nightmares, he always said he was just dreaming, but no one can scream and cry out like that and be dreaming about puppies in a field of flowers. Unless we're talking Gundam Wing Endless Waltz with the depressing dead puppy and Heero in the field of flowers with the little girl...

But he sure as Hell had never watched Gundam Wing Endless Waltz, and he wasn't moving now. I'd _never_ seen him so still. In all the years I'd known him, I'd never seen him that still before. It was so wrong. Right then, I would have given anything to see him move again.

"Mels?" I whispered again. I found I was stroking his hair, which was kind of homo, but I didn't stop. It felt right, his hair felt smooth between my bare fingers. "Mels, why would you? You said you wouldn't do it again. Mels... Mihael..."

I wanted to say something meaningful, but my thoughts wouldn't focus. Only one thing was going through my mind, over and over. _'Mello, don't you die. You can't die. You can't die. Mels, you _can't die.'

I was shaking him, stroking his face, his hair, and now I was kissing him and it was like lightening, and now I was sobbing, and now I was on my knees on the floor with my face in my arms on the bed, and now I was clutching at him, and now I was being gently but firmly removed from him.

When I figured out that there was someone tugging on my shoulder, I reeled away to give them space. There were paramedics on him now, taking his pulse, doing all kinds of things to him that I had no name for, talking quickly in low voices.

Then one of the medics stopped running. "He's waking up," he told the room.

Another laughed in relief and sighed.

I jumped to my feet from where I had been a puddle in the corner and catapulted over to my best friend. I didn't even know I was speaking until the words were already out of my mouth.

"Mello, I love you. Don't die, Mello. You have to be alive. Can you hear me? Don't die."

"He's not going to." One of the very large men put a hand on my shoulder. "If he's waking up, it means he didn't take enough to kill him. He'll be fine."

I nodded furiously.

"Get him to the emergency room if anything changes," he told me kindly.

I bobbed my head again. "Okay. Thank you."

He patted my shoulder once more and they rushed off to deal with their next emergency. Good men, those.

Mello came back to me slowly. When he'd finally come around enough to talk, I touched his face gently, looking in those ice blue eyes that warmed when they saw me. "Why, Mels? Why would you...?"

"I didn't," he protested groggily. "I only took two."

"You didn't wake up," I reminded him. "I was yelling and you didn't wake up."

"'Course not," he mumbled. "They're extra strength, fast-acting, and I took 'em an hour ago."

"But you were already asleep when I went to bed."

"I woke up, numbnuts. And I wanted to go back to sleep, so I took them. _Two_ of them."

"Mels, don't lie," I said quietly. "The bottle was full this morning. It's empty now."

He groaned. "I spilled the whole bottle in the sink. The sink was wet, and they got damp, so I couldn't put 'em back or they'd all glue together 'n stuff. So I took the two I wanted and just left the others. Go look if you don't believe me, they're probably still there."

"Why was the bottle next to you?"

"'T remind me to get more when I woke up."

"...Oh." It all made sense. "So... you weren't..."

"No," he said as firmly as he could manage, blinking hard, trying to fight off the drugs. "I told you I wouldn't do it again."

"Oh." I stood there, not willing to move. Some part of me was convinced he'd keel over at any moment. I was sure I had the adrenalin to carry him over my shoulder at a sprint all the way to the hospital- four miles away- and I wanted to be ready to do so.

We were silent for a while, me just listening to his breathing and thanking anyone who was listening that he _was_ breathing.

"...I heard you, you know," he said after a minute.

By how hot my face felt, I was pretty sure I was blushing. I knew that blush would give me away, so I didn't bother playing dumb. "I see."

"Did you mean it?"

I sighed and sat down next to him where he was on the bed. As embarrassed as I was, I couldn't take my eyes off of him, off that blue. That blue that wasn't dead. "I dunno, Mello," I mumbled. "It just came out. I was so upset and... and I _thought_ I had just slept through you killing yourself."

"It kind of surprised me."

"Believe me, it surprised me more."

I looked down at him. Alive. Moving. Not dead. I had always known that I loved the man, but I hadn't known that I _loved_ him. And I had definitely meant it _that_ way. Like, 'I want to be with only you forever' kind of love. And I could still feel it now, even when the terror was gone. How long had that feeling been there?

Would I have been that afraid to lose Near? No. L? No. Roger? Watari? Linda?

No. None of them. I'd give _all_ of them to save Mello, and I wouldn't even hesitate doing it.

"You were crying," he stated gently.

He reached out a finger and brushed a tear track away. My heartbeat informed me that I approved of that action.

I nodded. Again, it was pointless to lie about it.

He looked at me for a long moment, as if he were considering something. He nodded a bit to himself. "You know I've always loved you, right?"

That... _had_ to be the pills talking. There was absolutely no way he could have feelings for me. I mean, I knew he was gay, but he couldn't love _me_. And if I really did love him, then exactly how many gay men did Wammy's House _have_, anyway?! L, who was currently fucking (being fucked by?) some Japanese guy with an English name. Rane, who was Mello's first boyfriend. Near, who had confessed himself to a freaky guy we all called Igloo because he built igloos in winter and refused to come out for days on end, who was _also_ gay. Let's not even talk about BB. And there were even rumors about some past Roger/Wammy activity, but I didn't believe that one.

Seriously, what are the odds that _seven_ (if we're including me) gay freaky-geniuses are all orphaned and end up in Winchester? I mean really.

"They must put something in the food," I muttered to myself.

But of course Mello _had_ to hear me. "What?"

"Practically every guy at Wammy's is gay, have you noticed that?" I said defensively. "Seriously. What are the odds of that?"

"Was that a rhetorical question or do I have to make an estimation?"

"No, _L_, you don't have to make an estimation." I laid down next to him. "My point was, yeah. I meant it. I do. Love you, I mean."

He smiled and scooted a little closer to me. He was warm, soft, and, again, so imperatively not dead. Yes, I loved him. Great, I was gonna have to dump my girlfriend. What was her name again? I couldn't remember at the moment.

Mello takes everything away. Makes nothing else matter.

I was falling asleep despite my previous terror, Mello's comforting presence and my sleep deprivation catching up with me. "What woke you up, anyway?" I prompted him sleepily.

Mello groaned. "Those stupid fuckin birds."

**A/N: Big high-five to anyone who knew what I was talking about with the Gundam Wing reference. : )**


End file.
